So glad it's over...

Recruiting is over.  And I think it went ok overall despite one ridiculous thing after another.  My definition of "ok" is managing to mask all the ridiculous stuff well enough that the recruits go home thinking the weekend was well organized and ran smoothly.

All the drivers (about a dozen people currently) are student volunteers, and are there to take the group of recruits where they need to go as well as out for some fun social things.  They do not exist to serve as individual chauffeurs for whatever an individual student wants.  Here's just a sampling of some of the hiccups  - some out of our control, some recruit-related, and some related to that incompetent new assistant grad coordinator (let's call her Marge for convenience sake - not her real name).

• Thursday morning (the day the recruits all arrived) the hotel tells us that nobody can check in before 3 pm because they were booked full the previous night.  The recruits started arriving at 10:30 am.  At least a dozen were here before 3 pm.   There's no way a bunch of people didn't check out first thing in the morning.  You really mean to tell me you can't have even 2-3 rooms clean by noon?  To stall, we wound up taking the earliest arrivals out to lunch, and made several recruits wait around at the airport much longer than normal.

• That girl who lives on campus without a car?  Yeah, not that bright, NO idea what she's getting herself into, completely overwhelmed.  I'm pretty sure her undergrad research advisor (who is a nut job) twisted her arm into applying.  Oh, and this girl isn't responsible/mature enough to make a damn decision and tell anybody if or when she needs a ride.  When I drove her to dinner, there was no mention of the fact that she needed a ride back to campus.  Nor did she say anything about the rest of the weekend's events.  When I pointedly asked if she was going on the Friday afternoon outing or to class, trying to get at whether she could wait at the hotel between said outing and dinner, or if she needed a ride from campus to dinner, she couldn't make a damn decision.  Soon enough it's Friday afternoon at 5 pm and I have no idea where she is or if she needs a ride.  At that point we all decided that if she needed a ride that was just too damn bad.  Funny side note - Saturday afternoon she decided to go with the group that was going on a tour of Tucson.  She's lived here for 4 years.

• A few weeks before recruiting weekend there's an online signup form for students to volunteer for various events.  In past years, shortly before recruiting, everybody who signed up gets a name tag, schedule, and the necessary maps in their mailbox.  Professors also get schedules and maps.  The only thing anybody got was a name tag.  Guess who's job that was.

• There was one student who requested to fly into Phoenix a day early, and planned to rent a car to drive down to Tucson, and then fly out of Tucson like everybody else.  For some reason, somebody decided this was ok.  When Marge emails this kid to remind him that he needs to be at the hotel by 6 pm, he asks for a ride from the rental car drop off point.  On the total opposite side of town from the airport.  Apparently it would cost him twice as much to return the car to the airport.  After a series of emails, it is decided that Cliff (the other 5th year grad student who organizes the drivers with me) will drive pick this guy up.  Thursday afternoon Cliff gets all the way across town to the rental car place and can't find this kid, so he calls him.  Turns out earlier in the day he called Marge to tell her he decided to keep the rental car, and wouldn't need a ride.  Did Marge answer her phone or ever check her messages?  Nope.  Awesome.  A waste of time and we look disorganized.  This gets more ridiculous.  We assumed that once he decided to keep the car (no idea why, but I found out later he drove back up to Phoenix Friday night for who knows what reason) that he was no longer our problem.  Wrong.  Saturday night, during dinner, he asks another driver if somebody will follow him to the rental car place after dinner.  No notice, no consideration that the drivers are supposed to be driving the other 39 recruits to the party.  I know I'll be gone, but I hope this kid doesn't come here.

• Saturday morning the recruits come to campus and have a series of one-on-one meetings with professors.  Marge was meant to be there before the recruits arrived to meet the caterer who delivered snacks and beverages.  Guess who was an hour late.  Guess who then sat there all morning not interacting with or helping any students find their meetings.  Yep.

There were other examples too, but I'll leave you with two funny recruit stories:

• At lunch on Thursday (the early arrivals we had to entertain before hotel check in), one guy mentions that he's going to have to relearn how to iron his clothes.  I guess he'd packed everything ironed, but well, it had all been crammed into a suitcase...so... The girl at lunch then offered to help him.  For real.  We then suggested that she teach him rather than doing it for him.  I found out later that she totally did.  His pants weren't in too bad of shape, so she just supervised that.  Then coached him through ironing his shirts.  Too funny.

• Friday night student drivers generally take the recruits out to the bars.  On the way down to the hotel lobby to head out, something like 13 of them piled into one elevator.  Somebody said hey, let's all jump.  A couple of them jumped, and the elevator totally got stuck.  For 45 minutes.  Ridiculous, but super, super funny.  If either of the jumpers actually come here, they will never be allowed to live it down. :)

This morning I gave my feedback to the graduate program coordinator (who is more than competent and absolutely wonderful), emailed all the planning documents I had to the grad student who's taking over coordinating the drivers, and cleaned out the folder where I had various old documents stored.  SO excited that none of this is my problem any more!

Acknowledgments

To any of you who might be writing a paper or preparing a presentation - anybody who is listed as a co-author on whatever you are preparing should not be mentioned in the acknowledgments section/slide.  Your co-authors are supposed to help you - they're just as responsible for the paper/presentation as you are.  (Which is why nothing should be published/presented with your name that you haven't had the opportunity to fully review/critique, even if you only contributed to a small portion of the final product.)

Example:

If you're giving a student seminar within your department, generally you are the only "author" listed, so it's perfectly fine to thank your advisor.  However if you're writing a paper or preparing a presentation for a conference, your advisor would be listed as a co-author (in the physical sciences at least), and therefore should not be listed in the acknowledgments.

I feel like I've been seeing this a lot when I watch practice talks lately, and a friend's (jerk of an) advisor sent a comment to him about a paper draft that said "anybody else??" when he "only" listed two (non-authoring) labmates who had been useful in discussing data and proof-reading.  The advisor should certainly know better (and stop being an asshat), and before now I'd thought this was common sense as far as the younger students are concerned...

Just one example of many...

Recruiting starts tomorrow.  It's going to be a trainwreck.  We've got a new assistant grad program coordinator who is um, not the sharpest knife in the drawer or tool in the shed, or bulb or crayon in the box.  I could go on. My classmate and I have been coordinating the student drivers for the past several recruiting weekends, and needless to say this woman is making our job considerably more difficult.  But it turns out she's not the only one who's a little slow...


This afternoon I got an email from this asst grad coordinator asking if I am going to dinner tomorrow night.  I usually do, but there's really no reason that I need to be there.  Anyways, I tell her (um, somewhat snippily) that I was planning to go.  And then she tells me, less than 24 hours before recruiting stuff starts, that we have a recruit who lives on campus here (as she's a current undergrad here) who does not have a car, and asks if I can give her a ride to dinner.  Nevermind that there's no mention of the fact that surely she needs a ride back to campus after dinner, or that presumably we'll have to shuttle her individually back and forth to all the off-campus events.


I replied to the asst grad coordinator saying sure, I can do that, tell her to meet me behind [chem dept building] at 6 pm.


I got this email at 6:41 tonight:

Hi Anne,


[Asst grad coord] sent me an email saying that you are going to take me to the [hotel where all the other recruits are staying] for dinner tomorrow night.
I [was] supposed to meet you at 6 outside CSB, but I did not see you there.
Can I have your phone number so I can contact you tomorrow?
Thanks.


Best Regards,
[Lacking-all-common-sense Recruit]

[HEADDESK]

I replied to clarify that I meant tomorrow... as that's when dinner is.  I see a few possibilities here.

1. This recruit is not very bright.  Like to the point that I'd be concerned about odds of surviving grad school.

2. This recruit's English is so poor that she didn't understand the email from the assistant grad coordinator.  Entirely possible, though sadly I've seen people with far, far worse English make it through a PhD.  (Before you jump all over me - I've studied abroad, I know it's incredibly hard and tiring to master a language to the point of being functional, however if you want a degree from an English-speaking institution in an English-speaking country, I fully expect you to be functional in English.  End of story.)

3. The assistant grad coordinator is even dumber and more useless than I thought she was.

And 4th - the only possibility of which I'm sure - is that this recruit has so little common sense that it never occurred to her that the idea of meeting me today was weird and made zero sense.  (Yes, some combination of these possibilities is also plausible.  Also, no, sadly common sense is not required for a PhD, though I'd argue that it should be.)

Sadly, this is the most benign example I have of why this weekend is going to be a chaos teetering on the brink of disaster.  Counting down the hours until Sunday at noon...

Picacho Peak

We hiked Picacho Peak again last Saturday.  Somehow this hike seems to be getting scarier rather than easier for me.  Anyways, I just took a couple photos from the top when some vultures were flying low (charming, I know, especially given my fear of falling to my death throughout most of this hike).

Sweets for my Sweetheart(s)

Happy Valentine's Day!  With or without a boyfriend (previously it's always been without) I like Valentine's Day.  I'll always take an excuse to get dressed up and go out for dinner with my girlfriends.  And you can't be surprised to hear I'm a fan of all the ridiculously adorable Valentine's-themed desserts out there.  This year I sent packages of goodies to Boyfriend, my little brother, and one of my college roommates (I would have sent a package to my other college roommate, but she only eats 3 food groups now, none of which are butter or sugar.), and the cookies just turned out so freaking cute that I had to share them.

I made these chocolate cookie sandwiches from Sprinkle Bakes - a lot of her her desserts are more involved than I'm generally looking for, but man are they gorgeous.  But these cookies were just the right amount of involved AND they used up every last sprinkle I had!

I also made these conversation heart cookies from Annie's Eats.  The sugar monster inside of me loves conversation hearts, and the cookies are just so cute.  And it was fun to throw in a couple "specialized" ones.  This was my second attempt at decorating with royal icing, and I've decided it's a lot of fun (though rather time consuming).  Please ignore the icky-looking butter prints on the paper towel and consider how delicious and buttery it means these cookies are.

For my labmate.  My labmates got the extras that didn't get mailed.

I also made these yummy toffee blondies from Lovin' from the Oven.  I didn't take any photos since they taste much, much better than they look.  Also I substituted regular chocolate chips for the white chocolate chips because white chocolate is icky.

Sorry to post this so late, but I wanted to wait until the packages got to their destinations before posting.  Hopefully they all beat this!

Cafe Reviews for the Dissertation Writer, Volume 8

Bar Edition!

Friday afternoon Dallas and I headed to 1702 for some dissertation writing for me and paper revisions for him.  Surely I can work just as productively with a beer in hand as a cup of tea right?  Turns out I totally can.  I got at least as much done, if not more, that afternoon than I usually do during a dissertation date.

Pros:

• There are lots of tables, and as long as you don't arrive during a meal rush, there are plenty of tables.
• They have totally delicious pizza and about a zillion beer options, including beers that this non-beer-fan enjoys.
• It's within walking distance of our offices, and a somewhat long walk from home.
• Free wifi

Cons:

• Timing is everything.  You're going to have a hard time if you arrive during the lunch rush.  We got there shortly after 11 (kinda early for lunch), started with a beer, ordered lunch later, and worked all afternoon.
• There aren't that many outlets, and none near the tables by the windows.
• The place is pretty loud when it gets full.
• When we go to a cafe I get a cup of tea or a chai latte - neither of which is particularly unhealthy.  However my waistline can't support a slice of pizza and a couple pints of beer all that often...

I enjoyed this dissertation date very much.  I'm quite sure this will be a quasi-regular thing.

Cafe Reviews for the Dissertation Writer, Volume 7

Last week Tiff and I tried Shot in the Dark Cafe, which is in downtown Tucson.  In short, there was one deal breaker which trumps all the good things about this cafe - we both left reeking of cigarette smoke.  The cafe part we were in was non-smoking, but the closed off adjoining room (which I think was more bar-like in character) allowed smoking, and the smell permeated the whole place despite the separation.  Anyways, here's the list:

Pros

• The cafe is open 24/7!  Coffee XChange is the only other cafe we've found open 24 hours, and sadly, we're not particularly likely to go back there (though far more likely to go back there than to Shot in the Dark!).  While I'm generally not a night owl, and midnight is usually plenty late for me, I really like that if I get on a roll, there's no reason to stop!  This actually came in really handy as it took me til about 12:30 to finish the section that I was determined to finish that night.
• They had lots of food, like legit meal-food, not just drinks and snacks.  Tiff had a sandwich that looked pretty tasty.
• They use real dishes - I had a chai latte in a beer stein. :)
• Free wifi
• The place was mostly empty!  Weird conversations are probably one of the most distracting things about working in public (or in the office haha), but no worries about that here.

Cons

• The cafe is downtown, which means it can be hard to find parking and you may have to park a couple blocks away.
• While the cafe is technically within walking distance (I run by it regularly in fact), but I don't want to make that walk home in the middle of the night by myself.
• Tiff's labmate who was also working with us reported that the bathroom was pretty gross.  I held it til I got home. :(
• Finally, the smell of cigarette smoke from next door!  ICK!  Get better ventilation people!  For this one reason I won't be back.

The place we're trying this week looks pretty good...including their dessert menu. :)  Let's hope it's an improvement otherwise, too.

Why am I doing this?

Ah, finally one of these dumb "Shit ____ Say" I can relate to.  I've personally heard or said just about every one of these lines.  Especially the "why am I doing this?" one.
 

Goals & Kitchen Goals, Update

So before I get into what kitchen goods I want to whittle down in February, an update on my broader goals and January's kitchen goals.

• The write/defend graduate thing - well, I've written about a chapter and a half.  Well maybe a little more than that.  I'm hoping to have a second chapter knocked out by the end of the week.  But yes, I'm going to have to pick up the pace.
• Finding a job...I've applied for a couple things...and I've done a fair amount of browsing for pertinent postings.  But I need to get some more applications out and find some more (in the sense of quantity and quality) appealing postings.
• Vitamins - I've actually been pretty good about this!  I haven't been taking my vitamin every day, but at least several times per week.  I'll consider this one a success.

I also talked about trying to work my way through my excessive stash of frozen cranberries, curry, rosemary, and cloves during the month of January.  While I haven't polished anything off, I did use more of each of these than I typically would in a month.

• I'm down to one bag of frozen cranberries from 2 1/2 bags.  They've gone into baked oatmeal, muffins, and cookies.  I tried to "health-up" the muffins but subbing a small portion of the flour with whole wheat flour, subbing apple sauce for the vegetable/canola oil, and eliminating the crumb topping (sigh).  I've been wanting to try the vegetable/canola oil substitution for a while.  All the commentary I could find online said that it would change the texture, but that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  I do think it made the muffins significantly heavier and denser, but they were still tasty, so I don't think it was a bad substitution.
• While I only used curry a couple of times, twice per month is definitely higher than my average curry consumption rate.  I still have a holy ton of curry though.
• I almost finished a bottle of dried rosemary!  Fortunately winter generally means ample quantities of root vegetables, which are quite amenable to rosemary.  I made mashed potatoes with rosemary as well as roasted miscellaneous root vegetables.
• The only thing I used cloves for this month were these gingerbread cookies that I made in the shape of kangaroos for Australia Day.  If you're looking for a gingerbread cookie recipe, I highly recommend that one from Annie's Eats.  They were delicious, stayed soft at least as long as they existed before being devoured, and got rave reviews from everybody.  (And they used up a bunch of cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg!)

Sadly, we haven't had a chance to make anything with saffron.  Hopefully we'll get to it this month.  Fingers crossed!  Aside from hopefully getting around to cooking with saffron, here's what I'm hoping to focus on this month:

• Pinto beans - last year we accumulated a ton from the CSA and just never used them.  They're dry.  They keep indefinitely.  So we didn't worry about them.  But now we have a ton.  I did already get a head start on this by making this yummy recipe from Simply Recipes last weekend.  We got cilantro in our share, and E had jalapenos from her mom, so it seemed like a good idea.
• Whole wheat flour - I bought it for one particular recipe, but haven't really used it otherwise.  I used a whopping half cup in the cranberry muffins I made last weekend though. :)  I've found a few recipes that particularly call for it - including pizza crust and more muffins.  And I'm going to try to sub in a small portion of the total flour in a recipe for whole wheat more often.
• Drink mixes - random, I know.  But I've got some Gatorade mix (left over from the Grand Canyon trip) and a bunch of EmergenC just sitting around.  It should be used.  Either would certainly be better for me than the Cherry Coke Zero I love so much (though not nearly as tasty :( ).
• Sprinkles - I don't know when, why, or how I got them, but I have them.  We used a bunch for E's advisor's birthday last week, but Valentine's called for cute baked goods, which can easily accommodate cute sprinkles. 

I'll be sure to report back in a month. :)